Who will lead Haiti into the future? The 2010 presidential election

On Jan. 12 of this year, Haiti was hit by a massive earthquake that killed a quarter million people, destroyed much of the impoverished country’s already deficient infrastructure, and left more than 1.5 million people homeless. Today, a million and a half Haitians remain in temporary camps (tents, tarps) with no running water or sewage, while most rubble remains in place and comparatively little in the way of reconstruction has occurred. And, as if that were not enough, the country’s inadequate clean water supply and sewage system (dysfunctional before the earthquake and nonexistent in many areas after; more than two-thirds of the population presently lacks access to a reliable supply of potable water) has provided fertile ground for a recent deadly cholera outbreak resulting in the death of more than 1,000 people since mid-October.

Within this climate of devastation and despair, Haitians will head to the polls this coming Sunday, Nov. 28, to elect a new president. Under the Haitian Constitution, President René Préval (1996-2001, 2006- ) is ineligible to run for re-election. In the event no presidential candidate receives 50 percent + 1 of the valid vote, a runoff election between the two candidates who receive the most votes will be held (tentatively) on Jan. 16.

The task of rebuilding Haiti will fall largely to the next president of Haiti, who is expected to assume office on Feb. 7, 2011, and will serve a five-year term. If this president is successful in the formidable tasks of reforming and rebuilding the Haitian state, effectively coordinating with international donors and nongovernmental organizations to optimize the use of donor funds and efforts, and better engaging the large Haitian diaspora in the reconstruction of Haiti, then Haiti’s future will be brighter than appears to be the case today, as well as was the case prior to the earthquake. If, however, this president fails to surmount most or all of the above-mentioned challenges, then Haiti’s future prospects will continue to be very bleak.

For the first time in the country’s young democratic history, the presidential election will in all likelihood require a second round. When voters (4.7 million registered voters) arrive at the ballot box, they will find a total of 19 presidential candidates, a number that was reduced from an initial 34 by the country’s Provisional Electoral Council (a body criticized by many for its close ties to Préval) in August, when candidates such as hip hop artist Wyclef Jean were excluded from the electoral process for a variety of reasons, most relating to failure to meet residency requirements.

Also banned from participating in this year’s election, as has been the case since a 2004 coup removed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991, 1994-96, 2001-04) from power, is Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas political party. A weakly institutionalized party, most Fanmi Lavalas elites and supporters in the electorate have since 2004 migrated to other political parties (with many currently found in/supporting Préval’s recently formed INITE party). Surveys conducted in 2008 and 2006 by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) indicated that only 1 percent of the population considered themselves to be a Famni Lavalas party supporter. While the ban on the formal participation of Famni Lavalas is very unfortunate and the Obama administration and broader international community should have lobbied harder for the party’s inclusion in the electoral process, the limited level of popular support for the formal Famni Lavalas organization (as opposed to the generally widespread support for many of the ideas and goals that the broader Lavalas movement embodies as well as general affection for Aristide) suggests that this exclusion does not substantially undermine the legitimacy of the electoral process. Far more worrisome from a legitimacy perspective are the prospects for serious disorganization on election day and electoral fraud (both general, and in particular in favor of candidates backed by Préval), something that hopefully the Haitian Government and international community are doing their utmost to avoid.

While there are 19 presidential candidates, only a handful has a realistic chance of participating in the January runoff. The two leading candidates, and most likely competitors in the runoff, are Jude Célestin and Mirlande Manigat.

Célestin was a relative unknown prior to being hand-picked by Préval as his anointed successor. Célestin has longstanding ties to Préval and most recently served as head of the Haitian government’s highway/road construction company. Célestin’s campaign has benefited from the logistical support and resources his campaign enjoys as a result of Préval’s (and hence, the Haitian government’s) backing. It is probable the Préval would, at least initially, exercise considerable influence within a Célestin administration, perhaps going as far as to become the country’s next prime minister (constitutionally the second most powerful post after president), following the model of Vladimir Putin in Russia.

Manigat is the spouse of Leslie Manigat, who briefly served as president in 1988 and more recently placed second to Préval in the 2006 presidential election (albeit with 12 percent of the vote to Préval’s 51 percent). Manigat enjoys the backing of much of Haiti’s elite and of many within the million-strong Haitian diaspora in North America. Her support in the diaspora is based in part on her active campaigning in the United States and Canada along with her promises to eliminate the ban on dual-citizenship and to facilitate a greater degree of participation and influence for the diaspora in Haitian politics and society. While few in the diaspora will vote in the presidential contest, they are an important source of campaign funds and often exercise influence over family and friends in Haiti who depend on the remittances they regularly send home (remittances account for approximately a quarter of Haiti’s GDP).

Other candidates with some hope of reaching the runoff in the event that one of the two front-runners falters are Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, Jean-Henry Céant, Charles-Henri Baker and Jacques-Édouard Alexis. Martelly is a successful Haitian musician, Céant a populist with strong ties to Aristide and the Lavalas movement, Baker a strident Préval critic and member of the minority Mulatto elite, and Alexis a former prime minister for periods during Préval’s first and second presidencies (most recently between 2006 and 2008).

Assuming all goes well with the November election and January runoff, Haiti’s next president will assume office the following February. The challenges facing Haiti’s new leader are daunting to say the least, for the sake of Haiti’s future, we can only hope that he/she is able to successfully meet them.

Mark P. Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s fellow in political science as well as the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.